Determinants, attitudes and willingness of private forest owners to produce goods and services: a review of the international literature

Determinants, attitudes and willingness of private forest owners to produce goods and services: a review of the international literature. There is an information gap in the Italian literature with regards to private forest ownership, while several analysis are available on the characteristics and the management systems of public forest ownership. To address this gap, this paper presents the characteristics of private forest owners and their evolution in time by reviewing the international literature in the last three decades. The examined studies are reported according to four perspectives: (i) the available classifications and/or typologies of private forest owners; (ii) the determinants of different forest owners’ behaviors, especially in relation to their objectives; (iii) the attitudes of forest owners and the motivations behind their management decisions; (iv) the valuation of the willingness to accept monetary compensations in return for the provision of ecosystem services. The results show a very complex picture, varying both in space and time. However, some recurring features can be identified: (i) not only are forest owners motivated by timber production goals, but also by other reasons, often very diversified and detached from market considerations; (ii) a “multi-functional” forest owner is by no means less active, but, conversely, is more active than a forest owner whose sole objective is timber production; (iii) in general, the active owner is a farmer whose family has owned the forest for many generations (and in this case he/she is more market-oriented), or is a new entry in the forestry sector; (iv) the “passive” owner is usually elderly, non-farmer and resides far from the property. In addition, the “absent” owner is a common problem to several of the examined geographical contexts. Although the results of the review cannot be transferred as such, they represent a useful starting point for similar analyses in the Italian context. Examining the determinants and attitudes of private forest owners in Italy would indeed prove interesting, given that private forest ownership in Italy represents a relevant share of total forest area and that the implementation of new policy tools such as payments for ecosystem services requires active participation by all key actors, including forest owners.